Harold W. Percival

CHAPTER XIV

THINKING: THE WAY TO CONSCIOUS IMMORTALITY

Section 1

The system of thinking without creating destiny. With what it is concerned. With what it is not concerned. For whom it is presented. The origin of this system. No teacher is needed. Limitations. Preliminaries to be understood.

BY THIS system one may train himself to think without creating thoughts, that is, destiny; the system will aid him in knowing his Triune Self and, possibly, in becoming conscious of Consciousness. The system is concerned with training the feeling-mind and the desire-mind to control the body-mind; and, by control of the body-mind to control the senses, instead of allowing the senses to control the body-mind and thereby to control the minds of feeling-and-desire. By training oneself how to feel, what to desire, and how to think, the body will be trained at the same time. By this system one may locate and find the bearings of the portion of the doer dwelling in his body. If and while he does this, changes will be brought about in the body; diseases will disappear in their proper order, and the body will become sound and responsive and efficient.

This system is not concerned with acquiring health merely to have health and to be free from pain, discomfort and impediments. Nor is it concerned with acquiring possessions, fame, power or even a competence. Health and possessions will come as one develops himself according to this system, but they are only incidental. Those who seek health should acquire it with the aid of intentional lung breathing, by proper posture, carriage, eating and exercise, by temperance in sleeping and the marriage relation, and by kind and considerate feeling towards others. Those who seek possessions should acquire them by honest work and thrift.

This system is not for those whose particular purpose is to seek clairvoyance, thought reading, power over others, control of elementals and the rest of what they call occultism. Occultism is concerned with the operations of nature and with the control and operation of nature forces. This system is concerned, above all, with understanding the Triune Self and the Light of the Intelligence, and with the practice of self-control and self-government. By self-control and self-government nature will be controlled and protected.

This system is for one who seeks to know himself as the Triune Self in the fullness of the Light of the Intelligence. Other systems deal with nature and the doer, undefined and undistinguished. This system identifies and distinguishes the doer from nature and shows the relations and possibilities of each. It shows to the embodied doer a way out of slavery to nature, into the freedom and wholeness of its own Triune Self in the Light of the Intelligence.

There is no history connected with this system. Its origin is in being conscious of Consciousness. The system as a course of training oneself in thinking and feeling and desiring, is composed of exertions by the portion of the doer-in-the-body and by intentional breathing and thinking. The system is directly connected with the efforts of the doer toward the right development of itself and thus furnishing higher types for nature to work through. The system is more subtly connected with being conscious as the doer and having enough knowledge to think without creating thoughts; that is, thinking without being attached to objects about which one thinks.

One who practices this system need not depend upon any other person than himself. His own thinker and knower will teach him as he gradually becomes conscious of them. Certainly he may communicate, if he wishes, with anyone about it. He obtains some information from the system and his experience with it, but it is he who must furnish the Light and become conscious of what the Light shows, as he goes on. He may be furthered by his own past thoughts, by his feelings, his desires, the people he meets, the matter he reads, or he may be hindered by any of these. His progress depends upon himself, on his intelligent, silent persistence in following this system. This must be so if he is to be self-controlled and self-governed.

There is no limit to what one may attain by following this system. The limitations, if any, are in himself, not in the system which leads to thinking without handicaps and so to knowledge of himself as the doer of his Triune Self and of his Intelligence. He can, by this system, desire, breathe, feel and think so that he himself will be the Way to all beyond.

One who follows this system should have an understanding of the difference between himself and nature. He must understand the relation of himself to nature as the outside universe and to nature as his body. He must understand the aia and the breath-form and their relation to each other, to nature and to himself. He must understand what the doer-in-the-body is and what it does and what is the relation of himself as the doer to his Triune Self and to his Intelligence.

In order to facilitate this understanding, a recapitulation of the statements made on these subjects is furnished in the following sections.